Stock analytics firm lowers Bitcoin price forecast for end of year

Stock analytics company Trefis has lowered its year-end forecast for the Bitcoin price (BTC/USD), industry website Cointelegraph has reported.

In a blog post published on Tuesday Trefis said that it now expected Bitcoin to finish the year at $12,500, lower than its previous forecast of $15,000. The firm explained that the decision to lower the forecast reflected the “weaker transaction volume outlook”. The firm, which based its BTC forecast analysis on fundamentals of supply and demand, pointed to significant recent losses in total transaction volumes across global crypto exchanges. It also attributed a surplus in supply and subsequent drop in the Bitcoin price to Mt. Gox selling large quantities of the token earlier this year.

“Adjusting our forecast for transaction volumes… leads to a year-end price target of around $12,500 – down from our earlier estimate of $15,000,” the company’s analysts wrote, as quoted by Cointelegraph.

Trefis also said that while Bitcoin saw some uptick in the last days of May, it still declined sharply over the month, dropping after an unsuccessful attempt at breaking above $10,000 on May 5.

Trefis’ forecast is in contrast with that of Fundstrat’s co-founder and head of research Tom Lee, who remains more bullish on the original cryptocurrency. Last month Lee reiterated his earlier forecast that Bitcoin will reach $25,000 by the end of the year and attributed the coin’s recent struggles to “typical crypto volatility”.

In today’s trading, the Bitcoin price stood at $7,586.15, as of 17:09 BST. The digital coin has lost 1.4% of its value in the past 24 hours, according to data from cryptocurrency tracker Coinmarketcap. Bitcoin’s total market capitalisation currently stands at nearly $130 billion, which represents 38.1% of the total value of all digital currencies.

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